New Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh Will Focus on Health Issues Affecting Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Communities
The University of Pittsburgh has created a new research center to study health issues affecting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. The Center for Research on Health and Sexual Orientation at the university's Graduate School of Public Health will consist of 15 university faculty who specialize in a range of subject areas, including medicine, social work and education. The group is working on a study that will look at the side effects of AIDS drugs, but the researchers say that the center will look at issues "beyond HIV," including the hepatitis B epidemic in the gay community (Snowbeck, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1/29).
Liver Transplants and HIV
The
Post-Gazette today also features an article on Larry Kramer, the founder of ACT UP who recently received a liver transplant at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Before Kramer's transplant, the University of Pittsburgh had performed 10 liver transplants in HIV-positive people since 1997, and eight recipients are still living. The university is one of 10 centers participating in an NIH-funded study to determine the safety and effectiveness of liver and kidney transplants in HIV-positive patients. Kramer, meanwhile, has become an activist dedicated to "attack[ing]" the shortage of organs for transplant in the United States (Snowbeck, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1/29).